Metro

City employees blast the City Council’s huge raise as ‘unfair’

The City Council’s fat new raise means that members’ salaries are now double and triple the paychecks of city workers New Yorkers deem truly essential.

“It’s unfair,” said Al Brogna, a retired court officer from Staten Island. “If they can find money for the City Council, why can’t they find money for people who put their lives on the line?”

The $148,500 that members now receive after passing a $36,000 raise Friday dwarfs the average annual pay of the city’s firefighters, cops and teachers.

It’s more than twice the $70,110 paid to the average middle-school teacher or the $72,370 earned by the average high-school teacher.

“I’m jealous. I wish all working people could vote themselves raises like that,” said Arthur Goldstein, a teacher at Francis Lewis High School in Queens. “I’m going to ask [UFT President Michael] Mulgrew to bring it up in the next contract negotiations.”

It’s quadruple the typical paychecks of crossing guards ($32,880) and police dispatchers ($43,210).

The pols’ pay vastly exceeds that of firefighters, who average $84,530 a year, and cops, who make an average of $78,980.

The 32-percent bump in lawmakers’ salaries comes just weeks after police officers had to swallow a meager 1 percent raise.

Cops posting under pseudonyms on Thee Rant, a law-enforcement message board, protested the hike.

“The New York Criminal Council,” posted Blue Trumpet.

“Let them patrol the stairwells,” wrote TrueBlue.

“It’s outrageous,” said a local attorney who represented first responders injured in the 9/11 terror attacks. “If they could prove that they had a better year than these guys, I could deal with it. But what great piece of legislation have they passed?”

Good-government activists pointed out that the raise came with other significant changes — including a prohibition on outside income.

But city employees weren’t buying it.

“They put Silver in jail. They put Skelos in jail. Now they want more money so they don’t have to go out and break laws to make more money,” a veteran teacher said.

Additional reporting by Susan Edelman